israel

Mosaic of the Byzantine Emperor Isaac I Komnenos

27 March, 2019 - 17:50 Ed Whelan

Shock Findings In Ancient Garbage Mound Indicate Byzantine Empire Was In Major Decline BEFORE the Rise of Islam

Major archaeological discoveries can take place in the most unlikely places. In Israel, experts have made a very important discovery after an investigation of an ancient garbage dump. The abrupt way...

3 March, 2019 - 02:01 Ed Whelan

1,600-Year-Old Mosaic with Rare Blessing Inscription Gives Insight into the Samaritans

A rare inscription spelled out in a tile mosaic was found in the ruins of a 1,600-year-old estate that belonged to a wealthy Samaritan, at Zur Natan in central Israel. This find is helping experts to...

26 February, 2019 - 20:39 margaretmoose

Jezebel: Slander of The Queen of Israel, Virgin of Baal, Princess of Tyre

Jezebel - even to this day, the name of the wife of King Ahab is synonymous with wickedness and promiscuity. She was the most depraved of women, a murderess, an adulteress and worst of all an...

The Templar’s Tunnel (olegmayorov / Adobe Stock)

6 February, 2019 - 18:45 dhwty

The Templar Tunnel: Knight’s Strategic Passageway Was Lost for 700 Years

The Templar Tunnel is an underground passageway located in the city of Acre, in what is now Israel. This tunnel was built by the Knights Templar when the city was under the rule of the Kingdom of...

Left: The clay horse head from the Hellenistic period. Right: The Iron Age clay horse head

26 January, 2019 - 01:52 Ed Whelan

Riders On The Storm: Ancient Clay Horse Heads Emerge After Heavy Rain In Israel

Many important archaeological finds are a result of chance events and good fortune. In Israel, two clay horses’ heads which once were part of equine sculptures have been found by sheer luck. They...

Roman busts found in an ancient cemetery outside the old city of Beit She'an, Israel

1 January, 2019 - 18:14 Ed Whelan

Woman Spots Stone Head Poking Out of the Ground in Israel and Discovers Two 1700-Year-Old Statues

A woman walking through a cemetery in northern Israel has made a very important discovery. After heavy rains had washed away top soil, she chanced upon the top of a stone head, which turned out to be...

The rare hoard, which includes Christian coins, has been linked to "one of the most dramatic events in the history of Caesarea."

5 December, 2018 - 13:55 Ed Whelan

Rare Gold ‘Christian Coins’ Shed Light on the Story of a Crusader Massacre in Ancient Caesarea

Many archaeological finds cannot be linked to one particular dramatic event. However, the recent discovery of a hoard of coins can be linked to one very significant event in the era of the Crusades,...

Vipera palaestinae, Israel, the same species seen at the Western Wall

3 November, 2018 - 22:13 ancient-origins

The End of The World is Here if Snake Appearing in Israel's Western Wall is Symbolic of Ancient Biblical Prophecy

We had all better get ourselves prepared for a very big day in next year’s calendar, if a snake seen scaring away a pigeon between the ancient stones of Israel’s Western Wall is indeed, as some are...

Oldest brewery with traces of oldest beer found in Israel.

14 September, 2018 - 14:04 ancient-origins

Nomads Set Up the World’s Oldest Brewery in Israel 13,000-years-ago

A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests beer brewing practices existed in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia before the earliest known evidence,...

5 September, 2018 - 16:47 Joanna Gillan

Israeli town of Yavneh had thriving drug culture 3,000 years ago

Archaeologists discovered traces of hallucinogenic substances used over 3,000 years by the Philistines living in ancient Yavneh, Israel, revealing a drug culture that is believed to have revolved...

King David in Prayer by Pieter de Grebber, circa 1600–1652/1653.

5 July, 2018 - 18:53 ancient-origins

In the Footsteps of King David: Stories of Love, War, and Bravery

Beneath the tranquil pastoral green landscapes of the Sorek and Elah valleys lies a dramatic story about the region in ancient times. Draining the western slopes of the Jerusalem Hills, the two...

Two of the jugs excavated from the hard to reach cave on the Israeli/Lebanon boarder.

4 July, 2018 - 18:55 ashley cowie

Remote Israeli Cave Holds A Potted Mystery

Two ancient jars dated to over 2000-years-old are mystifying archaeologists, as they were lowered down an “almost totally inaccessible... sheer 30 meter cliff-face” and stashed inside a tiny cave in...

26 June, 2018 - 02:45 Robin Whitlock

5,000-year-old musical scene found on pottery in Israel may reflect sacred marriage ritual

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority working at Bet Ha-‘Emeq have discovered a shard from an early Bronze Age storage vessel depicting scenes from what seems to be a ‘sacred marriage...

: Human teeth from Qesem Cave. Credit: Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv University

19 June, 2018 - 17:49 aprilholloway

Ancient teeth reveal evidence of 400,000 year-old manmade pollution in Israel

A multi-national team of researchers found the first known case of manmade pollution in a cave in Israel. The evidence was found in the hardened dental plaque of 400,000-year-old teeth, which had...

Statue of a ram that was discovered next to the vaults at the front of the temple platform in Caesarea. The town was founded by Herod the Great, king of Judea under the Roman Empire

11 June, 2018 - 21:41 Mark Miller

What New Archaeological Treasures Have Been Unearthed in the Ancient City of Caesarea?

This week, Caesarea National Park came a step closer to its goal of rivaling Jerusalem as the top tourist destination in Israel. After a $27.5 million investment plan from the Edmond de Rothschild...

Archaeologists believe this is the head from a sculpture of an unknown authority figure who lived in Israel 2,800 years ago.

9 June, 2018 - 22:57 Alicia McDermott

Does 2,800-Year-Old Statue Head Depict a Forgotten Biblical King?

Archaeologists are in the midst of a mystery of forgotten identity. They are trying to discover the name behind a 2,800-year-old face found in the ancient city of Abel Beth Maacah in northern Israel...

Pages

Myths & Legends

The Ancient Pagan Origins of Easter

Easter is a festival and holiday celebrated by millions of people around the world who honor the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred three days...

Saint George, The Dragon Slayer: The Legend Behind the Hero

The Story of the Scary Shtorka and the Revival of Croatian Mythology

Hermes: Messenger of the Gods and Patron of Traders, Travelers, and Thieves

Prophecy of the Popes: Are We Reaching the End of Days?

Ragnar Lothbrok: A Real Viking Hero Whose Life Became Lost to Legend

Human Origins

Detail of ‘Ashkenazi Jews praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur. (1878 painting by Maurycy Gottlieb)

Where are Ashkenazi Jews from? Their Origins May Surprise You

Ashkenazi Jews are a Jewish ethnic group who have their earliest ancestors from the indigenous tribes of Israel…at least on one side of the family tree. A study published in 2013 in Nature Communications has shown their maternal lineage comes from a different, and possibly unexpected, source.

One Hundred Thousand Adams and Eves?

What and Where is Heaven? The Answers Are at the Heart of the Easter Story

The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts

Rh-Negative Blood: An Exotic Bloodline or Random Mutation?

The Secret Life of an Ancient Concubine

Ancient Technology

Handle of one of the wooden tools from the Poggetti Vecchi site.

171,000-Year-Old Fire Forged Tool Discovered Beneath a Giant Elephant

171,000 years ago, in Tuscany, a set of ancient tools were crafted and forged with fire. Archaeologists in Florence, Italy, made an incredible discovery during construction work at Poggetti Vecchi. A paper published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Norimitsu Odachi: Who Could Have Possibly Wielded This Enormous 15th Century Japanese Sword?

The ancient invention of the steam engine by the Hero of Alexandria

Does ‘New Evidence’ Prove Noah’s Ark Is Buried on a Turkish Mountain?

Common Tools or Ancient Advanced Technology? How Did the Egyptians Bore Through Granite?

Romans Mastered Nanotechnology and Used it for Eye Catching Decoration

Ancient Places

The Mzora Stone Circle in Northern Morocco.

The Mzora Stone Circle: A Megalithic Mystery in Morocco

When people think of megalithic structures, there is a clear behemoth which undeniably dominates the history books – Stonehenge

3,000-Year-Old Ain Dara Temple in Syria Reduced to Rubble by Turkish Airstrikes

Ashurbanipal: The Oldest Surviving Royal Library in the World with Over 30,000 Clay Tablets

Roque Bentayga, Gran Canaria: Vestiges of the Mysterious Guanche People

Peel Castle: Centuries of History, a Mysterious Pagan Lady, and a Phantom Dog

The Lost Tribe of Clover Hollow – Oldest Civilization in the World Found in Appalachian Mountains?

Opinion

The astronomical ceiling at the Pronaos, Detail of the first Band west from the center. From left to right: two wind creatures (the winged ram with four heads personifies the south wind), the snake- and frog-headed eight goddesses and gods of the Ogdoad who ruled the cosmos before the creation of the world and Osiris seated on a throne sails across the sky as personification of the full moon accompanied by the seated goddesses Nephtys (left) and Isis on the right (Maat stands near the bow of the ship). Siri

Changing Colors and Scampering Across the Night Sky: What Did the Ancients Say about Sirius?

In Egypt, Sirius was the Star of Isis, Isis being the companion and rescuer of the god Osiris. In a very deep way, Osiris was Egypt.

Cracking the Code to Discover Ancient Tarot Symbolism and Forgotten Universal Knowledge

The Secret Strategic Plans of Darius the Great

The Secrets of the Kabbalists Garden

Alchemy and Generating Lifeforce —Global Temples Made in the Shape of Lingams: Shaivite Bull Cult Part II

From Green Man to Bull Son, The Universal Shaivite Bull Cult – Part I

Our Mission

At Ancient Origins, we believe that one of the most important fields of knowledge we can pursue as human beings is our beginnings. And while some people may seem content with the story as it stands, our view is that there exists countless mysteries, scientific anomalies and surprising artifacts that have yet to be discovered and explained.

The goal of Ancient Origins is to highlight recent archaeological discoveries, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe.

We’re the only Pop Archaeology site combining scientific research with out-of-the-box perspectives.

By bringing together top experts and authors, this archaeology website explores lost civilizations, examines sacred writings, tours ancient places, investigates ancient discoveries and questions mysterious happenings. Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us. We seek to retell the story of our beginnings.